California Firefighters Use AI To Battle Wildfires

Muhammad Irfan Published September 13, 2023 | 11:00 AM

San Diego, Sept 13 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 13th Sep, 2023 ) :When a wildfire erupted in the middle of a recent California night, it could have been a disaster.

But thanks to a new monitoring system that uses artificial intelligence to scan for danger, firefighters were able to quell the blaze long before it got out of hand.

"It was less than a quarter acre," Captain Kris Yeary of Cal Fire told AFP.

"Had the AI not alerted us to it, it could have gotten much bigger." Yearly, who is responsible for organizing firefighting over an area that includes Mount Laguna, around 40 miles (65 kilometers) east of San Diego, sprang into action around 3 a.

m. on August 5 after a call from colleagues at a command center.

Computers watching live feeds from the Cleveland National Forest spotted what their algorithm had been taught to understand was a column of smoke.

Human operators were able to verify the machines were correct and alerted Yeary, whose firefighters quickly extinguished the flames.

"It could have been a devastating fire," he said.